Riverfront park proposed for vacant property along the greenway in Teaneck

TEANECK - A riverfront park with plantings and benches and a winding trail is being planned for a one-acre vacant property at 640 River Road.

The Friends of the Hackensack River Greenway and the Hackensack River Greenway Advisory Board applied for a $25,000 grant to create a sitting area wall at the River Road side of the property and a handicapped accessible trail leading to gardens with new shrubs and trees at the water front, where the property connects to the Hackensack River Greenway.

Norma Goetz, who with Marie Warnke and Mary Topolsky, wrote the application for the Green Acres grant, said that the proposed trail will have multiple turns so that handicapped and elderly persons from nearby Classic Residence could walk down the steep grade to the river. The trail will comply with ADA requirements for grade level.

"Without the multiple turns and switchbacks, the grade would be too steep for elderly people," said Goetz, a neighbor of the property, who noted that signs in Braille and shrubs and flowers with a variety of scents are also proposed for the park.

The land was owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses for many years. But the Board of Adjustment twice rejected the Witnesses’ application to build a Kingdom Hall on the property, citing traffic and other concerns. In 2010, the township bought the property from its owner for $600,000.

Lewis Osmond, president of the Friends of the Hackensack River Greenway, noted that the deadline for the application to go to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is Feb. 15.

The Greenway trail at the riverfront runs south behind private houses and connects to the Greenway at Terhune Park. The plans call for 12 new trees, separating the park from the private house to the south.

The entire project, which was planned by Topolsky, a landscape designer, will cost $34,000, Warnke said, $9,000 of which will be financed by a cash donation and donated labor from the Friends group and donated labor from the Teaneck DPW. She noted that Cadmus Brook emerges from the underground on the site and drains into the river.

The project calls for a fence along the brook, but with an opening midway to the river so children can play in the shallow water, Warnke said.

The new park, which in time may become part of Terhune Park, will not only give people greater access to the Greenway, but will make the Greenway a more visible presence, Warnke said.

"There are Greenway signs all along River Road but these do not give much sense of the trail. "The park will give people to see quite a bit of the trail from River Road and understand what the Greenway is all about."